LA DEFLAZIONE E IL DEBITO - Gzibordi
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By: GZ on Domenica 13 Gennaio 2002 11:36
Chi abbia letto la tavola rotonda annuale di "Barron's" di sabato trovava che i più pessimisti
indicavano che la Deflazione globale è il pericolo e con essa il peso del DEBITO
e dei fallimenti dovuti al fatto che in un clima di deflazione pesa molto di più.
Venerdì ad es è uscito un dato dei prezzi alla produzione in america del -0.7% mentre ci si aspettava un -0.2%,
questo tanto per dire che non è una discussione accademica, che in effetti si sta sottovalutando il peso della deflazione.
I fallimenti o semi-fallimenti di Enron, Kmart di molte delle telecom più innovative
come Global Crossing, Covad, KPN, Sonera e simili e dell'Argentina
hanno in comune (in mezzo a fattori più specifici ovviamente) la DEFLAZIONE
e il fatto che in un clima di prezzi che calano, tassi di interesse a lungo termine elevati e meno liquidità avere accumulato DEBITO ti schiaccia e di porta al fallimento.
Le fonti della deflazione sono:
i)
il dollaro che per gli ultimi tre anni ha continuato a salire senza che nessuno se ne preoccupasse perchè sembrava un elemento favorevole ai mercati (e alle esportazioni europee ad esempio).
(Perchè il dollaro che sale sempre crei deflazione è evidente spero)
ii)
la politica monetaria restrittiva delle banche centrali CON L'ECCEZIONE DELLA FED cioè la FED americana è stata l'unica a pompare denaro a tagliare i tassi in modo rilevante.
I giapponesi non possono farlo anche se volessero e gli europei non l'hanno fatto perchè sono preoccupati sempre e solo dell'inflazione.
Inoltre per ora anche i famosi 10 o 11 tagli dei tassi della FED NON HANNO AVUTO ALCUN EFFETTO SUI TASSI A LUNGO TERMINE (e le telecom prendono a prestito a 5 o 10 anni, non a 1 mese ....).
Su questo tema batte ad es il nostro Modigliani (il nobel), che insisteva anche due giorni fa sulla stampa italiana, dicendo che le banca centrale europea non capisce il problema della deflazione.
iii)
infine la Cina che continua il suo boom e continua a invadere i mercati mondiali con prodotti sempre più a basso costo. E in tutto il terzo mondo continua il boom della produzione a basso costo di materie prime che ne spinge sempre più in basso i prezzi (dal cotone alla soya al rame al caffè e ora anche il petrolio sembra grazie alla Russia)
Ad ogni modo qui è il punto di vista di Gilder che sostiene che il problema delle varie Enron, Telecom a banda larga e fibra ottica, JDS Uniphase e simili e dell' Argentina è che non si pompa abbastanza liquidità a livello globale
"... common source is a dangerously deflationary monetary policy in the U.S.
...."
------------ George Gilder sul Wall Street Journal --------------------
In the face of this long siege of policy blunders, politicians today charge Enron with concocting subsidiaries to conceal debt and self-dealing. But company structure is almost always chiefly a response to kaleidoscopic tax and regulatory law and the resulting threat of litigation. Launching innovations in arenas as diversely regulated and taxed as natural gas and broadband communications, Enron inevitably contrived a complex structure of subsidiaries and financial instruments difficult to explain under Securities and Exchange Commission rules that require simultaneous disclosure (or, more safely, non-disclosure) to all.
A trading company such as Enron or a long-term infrastructure play such as Global Crossing is no stronger than the confidence of investors and customers in its solvency. In an environment of SEC-enforced ignorance, mere rumors of crime and default can bring a company down.
The key to the debacle, though, was the debacle of money. Buffeting the Enron staples of fuels and bandwidth and afflicting all commodity prices -- from coffee (at an all-time low) to cotton (at 15 year bottoms) to scrap steel (down 55% in four years) -- deflation crashed the stock market and stifled every large company and every Third World country with its debt denominated in dollars.
K-Mart, Pacific Gas & Electric, Exodus, Globalstar, Enron, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia -- all made serious and unique errors from time to time; all countries and companies do. But what these cases had in common was heavy debt. Taking 40% of incremental income from investors through tax hikes, and tightening monetary policy until entrepreneurial debtors have to repay 40% more than they borrowed, is a sure route to ruin.
When all debtors are afflicted, the scientific method points not to a hunt for particular infractions but to the isolation of a common source. And that common source is a dangerously deflationary monetary policy in the U.S.
While the dollar has been surging since 1996 against the deflated yen, the euro, commodities, and gold, the Federal Reserve adhered to its view that dollars were too numerous and sucked them out of the most fertile frontiers of the economy. The dollar dutifully rose, and strangled the Third World countries with dollar denominated debt, the telecom infrastructure projects supported by debt, the car and computer-leasing companies funded by debt, the farmers, the steel producers, the energy prospectors who rely on debt finance and a stable standard of value.
Rather than addressing the fundamental problem of deflation, the administration enacted broad protection for the steel industry, thus spreading the damage to all companies that use steel and all companies dependent on trade. Rather than lowering tax rates on investments afflicted with deflation, policy makers obsessed about such rearview figments as "consumer confidence," an utterly meaningless statistic from the demand side.
A supply-side crisis requires the supply-side remedies of a stable currency, lower marginal tax rates, and deregulation of technology. These measures offer the only way to raise the tax revenues that will be needed to fund a war against terror and support a wave of retiring workers.
Money is a standard of value, a code for transmitting information about the supply and demand for goods and services. For a decade, Alan Greenspan seemed to adhere to a fixed standard of value, guided by a price rule based on gold and commodities. But since 1996, he went astray, citing as policy guides the "irrational exuberance of the stock markets," the productivity explosion, the Internet bubble. Without guidance from gold, currency markets lack any objective means to differentiate the "news" (a change in monetary conditions) from the white noise of a thousand clamorous markets. When the standard of value itself becomes a commodity, traded like any other on currency markets, the most vital investment information is lost amid the froth.
In essence, Mr. Greenspan blamed business for the errors of government, including his own. He created the context for the "crime wave." To save his exalted reputation, he must now return to a price rule.
Stop Tinkering
Meanwhile politicians must stop tinkering with the structure of law and regulation under which entrepreneurial plans play out. Businesses find themselves operating amid the turbulence of constant legal and monetary change. In extremis, caught in a baffling web of often conflicting bankruptcy, tax, regulatory, and securities laws, many executives make decisions that in retrospect can be interpreted as incriminating.
Bankruptcy, though, is not a crime but a punishment. Virtually no one plans for its concussive effects or expects them at all. The real source of the "crime wave" is the undulation of policy and the babel of alibis from politicians and bureaucrats searching for scapegoats.
Edited by - gzibordi on 1/13/2002 10:55:47